ASISIUM (mod.

See also:

• ASSISI (anc. Asisium)

Assisi)  , an ancient town of Umbria, in a lofty situation about 15 M . E.S.E. of Perusia . As an independent community it had already begun to use Latin as well as Umbrian in its inscriptions (for one of these recording the chief magistrates —marones—see C.I.L. xi . 5390) . It became a municipium in 90 B.C., but, though numerous inscriptions (C.I.L. xi . 5371-5606) testify to its importance in the Imperial period, it is hardly mentioned by our classical authorities . Scanty traces of the ancient city walls may be seen; within the town the best-preserved building is the so-called temple of Minerva, with six Corinthian columns of travertine, now converted into a church, erected by Gains and Titus Caesius in the Augustan era . It fronted on to the ancient forum, part of the pavement of which, with a base for the equestrian statues of Castor and Pollux (as the inscription upon it records) has been laid bare beneath the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele . The remains of the amphitheatre, in opus reticulatum, may be seen in the north-east corner of the town; and other ancient buildings have been discovered . Asisium was probably the birthplace of Propertius . (T .